


Our Town

by Queer_Trash_Queen



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: but i just binge watched all 3 seasons and had to write this, nothing too graphic tho, slight mentions of violence, this is v terrible and v rushed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 11:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8205536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queer_Trash_Queen/pseuds/Queer_Trash_Queen
Summary: Over and over the only truth - Everything comes back to you
(a very shoddy attempt at an our town inspired fic)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I havent written anything at all in a very long time, so this is super sloppy, but i love the play Our Town and I literally just joined this fandom and had to write some bellarke bc my heart was not satisfied so here we are  
> (not beta'd)

> _There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being._
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

The blade enters and exits her more quickly than she imagined. It catches her by surprise from behind, goes in low near her spine and comes out just under her rib cage. The air is sucked from her lungs as she presses a hand against the hole on her abdomen. Clarke’s mind moves like lightning, assessing the damages. The fact that she’s not yet dead lets her know that no major organs were ruptured, but the blood pulsing over her fingers lets her know that it won’t be long before she bleeds out from other internal injuries. Her knees hit the ground first, then her back, but she’s already blacking out by then, the sounds of the battle muffled and fading rapidly. Clarke Griffin has picked a hell of a time to die.

/./

Clarke wakes suddenly, surveying her unfamiliar surroundings for exits, weapons, and potential enemies. She only finds her father standing next to the bed she awoke on, smiling warmly at her. She must be dead or dreaming.  Instinctively, she draws back onto the bed away from him. She glances around again, searching for the source of this trick. Instead she sees them all. Charlotte, Lexa, Atom, Wells… each and every one she’s lost. She even sees her grandmother, who died when she was no more than four. They’re waiting for her.

The instinctual panic she felt upon waking is slowly replaced with a sense of calm and peacefulness. This place, wherever she is, is unlike anywhere she’s been before. The light is soft and gentle, unlike the harsh lighting on the Ark or the relentless sun on earth. The air is still and quiet, no hum of machinery or wildlife to create a background. Next to them, the battle Clarke was part of moments ago carries on, somehow completely separate from wherever they are. No one else is paying any attention to it, so neither is she. She’s almost surprised when her father speaks, lost as she is in her newfound home among the lost.

“Hello, Clarke. I’m sorry we had to meet again this way,” he says. “But I’m glad to see you. I’m so proud of how far you’ve come.” She returns his smile, feels nothing but utter joy at being reunited at last. He wraps his arms around her, and it’s like she’s a little girl on the Ark again. God, she’s missed him.

“It’s not over yet,” he says. She withdraws from their embrace to look him in the eyes. “You’ve still got time. But you have a decision to make. A very important decision.” Clarke looks at him in confusion. Here, in this other place, decisions seem like a very troubling problem for the living. Her father seems to know exactly what she’s thinking.

“You’re still a part of them. If you focus hard enough, you’ll be able to feel the part of you that is not here with us. You need to decide if you’re going to stay here with us, or return to them.” Clarke looks over at the crowd of people she’s lost, their arms outstretched, waiting for her to return to them.

“I want to stay,” she says, no hesitation. Already her life before seems a thousand years ago.

“It’s not that simple, sweetheart. This isn’t a decision to make lightly. Once you choose, you can’t change your mind. Those who come here before their time get a rare opportunity. You are allowed to revisit five moments in your time among the living. Then you can make your decision.” Clarke thinks this over for a moment then nods.

“Okay. Okay that sounds manageable.” Her father nods.

“Good. Now, not only will you live these moments again, you’ll watch yourself living them too. And you’ll know what they don’t – the future. You know how it all turns out.” Clarke nods solemnly.

“We’ll start with your first chancellor’s ball. You remember Jaha had just been elected, and your mother had just become a member of the council. You didn’t want to go the ball because you had in important test to study for, but your mother and Wells convinced you.” As her father speaks she can see her mother helping her dress for the ball, pinning her hair back and smiling proudly. She aches for this simpler time.

“You agreed to attend, but when you thought no one was watching, you slipped your study cards into the sleeve of your dress.” Clarke watches herself do just this and laughs at the things she used to prioritize. “Though you were Wells’ date, you left him early on in the evening to find a quiet place to study. Bellamy Blake was a young cadet at this time.” Clarke his startled from her reverie at the mention of his name.

“Bellamy was there?” She had no memory of seeing him, but back then he was just a face among the guard always present among social events of the upper class on the Ark.

“Yes. This is the first time the two of you met.” Clarke remembers a lot from that night – watching her parents dance together, toasting the new chancellor, stealing away to study – but Bellamy Blake is not one of these things. They watch her study for a while, until suddenly a shadow falls over her and she looks up and it’s him. She sees no recognition on her face, but she knows him in her _bones_ and she wants to scream that at the Clarke sitting in front of her. To warn her of all the tragedy they will share, all the burdens they will bear together. She feels sick to her stomach when she watches herself brush him off as he asks her to return to the party because she’s out of bounds.

They watch him watch her walk away, and Clarke doesn’t recognize the Bellamy before her. His face is different somehow, softer and while he still looks too burdened for someone so young, there’s no hatred in his eyes. Of course, she thinks, this is the year before everything went to hell. His mother and sister are safe in their room and he hasn’t been torn apart by loss yet.

“Now we’re going to your first time on the ground.” The scene before her shifts and changes until she’s back in the drop ship with the 100 – ninety-eight, counting the two boys who tried to follow Finn’s lead.  “Bellamy opened the ship’s door to let Octavia be the first on the ground. The first thing you felt was- “

“The sunlight, I remember. It was bright and warm. And the air, it was almost sweet. Nothing has ever felt so good.” She’s the last one off the ship, and as she blinks against the sun, Clarke sees the last time she smiled so purely. The kids are rushing around whooping and soaking it all in. Bellamy turns around and grins at her without a hint of malice, and she’d almost forgot that this moment had happened. He’s turning around and spinning Octavia. They laugh together like children, not a care in the world. It’s beautiful. He’s beautiful.  

They continue on, watch her fall to pieces when they lose contact with Bellamy inside Mount Weather, and the tight hug they share when reunited. They see her firmly telling him that staying with Lexa is the right thing for her, for them, for their people. She relives the way anger washed over his face, the helplessness she felt when he walked away from her. Clarke’s father makes no comments, merely continues narrating these important pieces of her life, filling in small details that she’s forgotten, like the weather or the day of the week.

She’s not ready for the last glimpse, not ready to make a decision. Her heart catches in her throat when she sees that they’re standing on the beach where she and Bellamy had reconciled. His familiar words float through the air and wrap around her. _I was so angry when you left. I don’t wat to feel that way anymore._ When his arms do the same it hits Clarke that it felt (still feels) like coming home. He’s part of her home now, her family. Bellamy Blake, her family. If anyone had told her this a year ago, hell even a few months ago when they first landed, she would have laughed in their faces. Now she feels like laughing in her own for not understanding how important he is to her.

/./

Suddenly they’re back with the lost, bathed in comforting light, and it hits Clarke like the spear from the grounder. All those moments had a common theme: Bellamy Blake. It’s only then that she has an epiphany: the thing her father has been trying to show her showing her. The thing that will make or break her decision.

The serenity she’s been experiencing while in this other place fades away. What replaces it is a sense of cold fear and desperation. Looking down on them, working side by side together to defeat each obstacle that came their way, and supporting each other through the ones they couldn’t quite beat, she realizes something.

“I loved him, didn’t I?” Her father says nothing, but it’s becoming so clear.

            It’s in the way he looks too long and the way she pleads for his life. It’s in “I need you” and “we need each other” and every other time she asked him to stay for the good of their people without saying that without him she’d be lost. They are only good leaders together – he, the brain and she, the heart; though they had moments when they switched or shared the roles.

“I _love_ him,” she says, as though testing how the words taste and feel in her mouth. Bitter and heavy, is the answer, because she’s realized too late and once again Clarke griffin almost but not quite gets it. However well-intentioned she may be, she can never seem to pull things off the way they’re supposed to go. Mount Weather is her shining example of this.

The scene shifts again, and this time they’re back where they started, she and her father watching the battle that continues to rage while Clarke slowly bleeds out. Only this time something is different. There’s an addition to the scene: it’s Bellamy, kneeling beside her, hands pressed over the wound on her abdomen. He’s covered in blood – his own, the enemies’ and Clarke’s. She can see him shouting frantically, a panic in his eyes he’s only ever seen when he thinks Octavia is in danger and something else she recognizes.

They’re at war though, and no one is stopping to attend to the wounded, especially not to those too far gone to save. Bellamy isn’t leaving her side anytime soon but from the looks of it there’s not much he can do in an open field with no supplies. All he can do is wait, or help speed her along to her final breath. It’s been a long time since he was last in this position, and he wasn’t ready then, but she thinks he is now.

“Can I be with him? If I’ve made my choice, can I be with him?” Her father nods, still silent but with a proud look in his eyes. She knows she’s chosen right for once. She hugs him tightly breathing in his familiar smell. She closes her eyes when he presses a kiss to her temple and when she opens them again she’s in the field with Bellamy. He’s still desperately trying to save her, yelling for help while tears fall onto her face below.

/./

Clarke kneels next to Bellamy and her body, rests a hand on his shoulder. She hopes he can sense her presence. “It’s okay,” she says. She slides her hand into his and draws it back to the knife in his belt. He closes his eyes breathes in deep, steeling himself for what he knows he must do. Slowly, he brings the knife to her body’s neck, the way she had done for Atom so very long ago. He leans down to whisper in her ear, and Clarke hears it, though she’s still kneeling beside him.

“In peace, may you leave this shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground,” he looks to the sky for a reprieve before finishing their people’s blessing. “May we… may we meet again —Yu gonplei ste odon.”

            Bellamy’s voice trembles in a way Clarke has never heard before, and she places her hand over his on the knife that will send her into her next life. She hopes her spirit chooses well – and she hopes his does too, so that in their next life they may find each other again in better circumstances. With her gentle guidance, he eases the blade into her neck, holding back his cries when her chest finally stops struggling to rise and fall. 

Immediately, Clarke feels a sense of freedom wash over her as Bellamy looks away and gently closes her eyes. He leans down to her old vessel once more but now she hears nothing, no longer connected to the body that carried her through this life. She feels the ghost of his lips against her forehead as much as she sees it, the last thing he’ll ever give her. With a great sense of pride, she watches him remove her sword from its sheath and hoist it into the air with a vicious war cry. Her death was not in vain. It has inspired Bellamy just as it will inspire many others. She smiles and closes her eyes and when she opens them she is in a warm place filled with soft yellow light and all of the people she’s lost. They welcome her with open arms.

She is finally at peace.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading 2k of word vomit sorry it sucked lol.  
> May and or may not post a sequel from Bellamy's pov depending on how well liked this is  
> (still not beta'd)


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